The tortilla is a basic food in Hispanic homes in the United States and around the world. Typically made of corn or flour, the tortilla is served warm at every meal. Typically in the United States a tortilla is flat, round and six-inches in diameter. Conventionally, a tortilla is heated in a skillet on each side. Heating in a skillet, the surface of the tortilla in contact with the skillet is toasted and it acquires a bit of a skin. The tortilla is typically then flipped and the other side of the flat tortilla is warmed and it too acquires a bit of a skin. Typically, a family eats six to twelve tortillas at a meal.
Warming enough tortillas for a meal presents a problem. The skillet warming method requires a minimum of one minute per side. Only four tortillas can be warmed in a typical skillet. Some persons tasked with warming tortillas have tried to use the microwave oven to warm the tortilla but microwave cooking does not result in the desired consistency as the tortillas become too moist. Moreover, in the microwave a tortilla is warmed from the inside out. In the skillet, a tortilla is toasted from the outside with heat permeating the interior.
Inventor found a number of patents on devices to warm tortillas. Inventor reviewed the following patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 7,047,871 to Christoffel
U.S. Pat. No. 8,069,776 to Glucksman
U.S. Pat. No. 6,546,844 to Trevino
U.S. Pat. No. 5,584,231 to DeLeon
U.S. Pat. No. 2,562,535 to Leonard
U.S. Pat. No. 6,205,911 to Ochoa
U.S. Pat. No. 5,765,471 to Monard
U.S. Pat. No. 4,976,195 to Cavazos
U.S. Pat. No. 7,094,991 to Naranjo
U.S. Pat. No. 6,116,150 to Greenfield
U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,826 to Ortiz
None of these patents respond to problems in the inventive manner addressed by inventor.